followed by (and is at times preceded by and accompanied by) acts
of violence against the civil population, which acts of violence
are contrary to the conventional laws of war and to the most
elementary principles of humanity.

The procedure of the Germans is everywhere the same. They advance
along the roads, shooting inoffensive passersby, particularly
cyclists and even peasants occupied in the fields which the Germans
traverse.

In the towns and villages where they stop, the Germans first of all
requisition victuals and drinks which they consume to the point of
drunkenness; then they begin to shoot wildly, sometimes from the
interior of empty houses, declaring that the inhabitants have fired
the shots. It is then that the firing scenes begin, and murder and
especially pillage accompanied by acts of cold cruelty set in, acts
which respect neither sex nor age. Even where they claim to know
the perpetrator of the deeds which they allege, they do not content
themselves with executing the culprits summarily, but take
advantage of the occasions to decimate the population, to pillage
all the inhabitants, and to set fire to them.

After a first massacre, somewhat at random, they shut the men into
the church of the town and order all women to go back to the houses
and leave the doors open during the night.

In several localities the civil population has been sent to
Germany, to be compelled there, it appears, to labor in the fields,
as was done in the slave days of olden times. Numerous cases are
known where the inhabitants were forced to serve as guides and to
make trenches for the Germans. Numerous depositions reveal that in
their march, and even in their attacks, the Germans put before them
civilians, men and women, in order to prevent our soldiers from
firing. Other testimony proves that German detachments do not
hesitate to fly either a white flag or a Red Cross flag, so as to
approach our troops without being suspected. On the other hand they
fire on our ambulances and ill-treat our ambulance nurses. They
ill-treat and even kill our wounded. Clergymen seem to be
particularly the object of their attacks. Last, but not least, we
have in our possession explosive bullets left behind them by the
enemy at Wechter, and we are also in receipt